


The Death of a Bachelor

by Backwards_Blackbird



Category: Would You Rather (2012)
Genre: Bruce Abbott - Freeform, Decadence, Eating, M/M, Midlife Crises, Sexual Content, jeffrey combs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:20:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Backwards_Blackbird/pseuds/Backwards_Blackbird
Summary: “To tangle with a Lambrick was to flirt furiously with disaster. But for Gabriel Satterwhite, that ship had set sail long ago with no hope for return.”East Coast casino mogul Gabriel Satterwhite and his old friend Shepard Lambrick have been meeting privately for decades. Every year, Satterwhite rejects an invitation to attend and observe the Lambrick Foundation’s annual game. Will he finally accept?





	1. Chapter 1

****

**The Death of a Bachelor**

_October 2012._

 

Artemesia had witnessed much over the years.

The Los Angeles property was a behemoth of a Craftsman-style home, proudly commissioned by San Francisco oil mogul Harold Lambrick in 1913. Not unlike the smaller Craftsmans that dotted California, Artemesia was a carefully carved masterpiece, each fireplace mantle, door frame and newel post a work of art. Light flooded every space during the day, casting mahogany, silk and stone in a pleasant and opulent glow. The pipe organ at one corner of the formal dining room could be heard throughout the entire house when played. Mirrors were in abundance on all three floors, and the low coffered ceilings seemed to embrace all who entered. Every detail was as delicious as it was devilishly expensive.

What a shame it had to be the stage for such carnage year after year. 

Gabriel Satterwhite knew more about the Lambrick Foundation’s twisted dinner parties than anyone else outside the family, central staff and past participants. And even after nearly forty years with this knowledge, it was never lost on him how unusual it was that he possessed it at all. Rarely in any capacity would the Lambrick family allow outsiders a view of their private affairs, let alone some new-money casino man from Massachusetts.

But hazy college years have a tendency to loosen even the tightest of tongues. And that they had for Shepard Lambrick in the 1970s. 

Satterwhite rode silently toward Artemesia in a plain black sedan. The charcoal three-piece suit he wore made his hair look a dash grayer than usual, though his face held onto the provincial beauty of his youth remarkably well. He was a tall, lean man with alert brown eyes and a strong Roman nose. He adjusted a ring on his middle finger, a silver one bearing the Cornell University seal on a flat square face. 

“Staying longer this year?” the driver asked.

Gabriel smiled like a fox. “Unlikely.”

“Mr. Lambrick won’t be pleased.”

“Ah, well,” Gabriel laughed. “He can’t always get what he wants.”

The sight of Artemesia always warmed his blood. The green-shingled walls held a plethora of memories from years past: holidays, banquets, his customary visits in the early autumn. There was a gilded nostalgia about the place, as though it were always suspended in a time of its own. Perhaps this was because Shepard did not live there most of the year. 

Lambrick’s main home in the San Francisco Bay Area could not even begin to compare, in Gabriel’s eyes. Artemesia was a jewel, dark and divinely private.

Shepard Lambrick was the very portrait of pride as the sedan rolled into the car port. His already formidable ego was always in full bloom this time of year. He was pristine at the top of those brick stairs in a crisp heather-gray suit and a light pink button-up. “Gabriel Satterwhite,” he said with a smirk, his lips savoring the name. “Still alive, I see!”

“Yeah, much to your chagrin!” Satterwhite strode up to Shepard with familiarity that no one else would dare and affably embraced his neck with one hand. “Hello, you bastard.”

“Come inside.”

The two were opposing species: one a man who worked tirelessly for his fortune, the other a man who was born with it.

Satterwhite was an East Coast casino magnate of daunting proportions. Since spearheading White Horse Resorts and Gaming in the early eighties, he had ranked among the region’s wealthiest entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry. 

For all his accomplishments, however, his roots were markedly unspectacular. He was born to a Massachusetts tax accountant and his wife, an Italian immigrant who managed a small hotel in the Dorchester neighborhood. The family had split a derelict Victorian home there with another set of tenants. The old place left much to be desired, with its curling wallpaper and dusty floors and half-dead maple trees in the front yard. It was an assault on Gabriel’s pride on the daily—although he was never quite sure where that pride came from. It was always in his bones, curled like a slumbering lion, poised to drive him toward a greater purpose. As he matured, he wanted nothing more than to work his fingers to the bone, succeed independently, and live beautifully. 

By his late adolescent years, Gabriel’s feverish passion to create a brand of his own had become an obsession. And so he applied to the School of Hospitality Management at Cornell University. It was there that he would room with an infuriating, hot-headed young gentleman from San Francisco who took great offense at the fact that Gabriel was unfamiliar with his family’s name. 

He could still hear those clipped consonants as that young man first introduced himself with all the vigor of an overpaid thespian.

“Julian will not be with us until tomorrow morning,” Shepard announced in the entryway with practiced composure. It scarcely concealed his true feelings on the matter. 

Gabriel was not so diplomatic toward Shepard’s disagreeable son. “Thank God for that.”

“Now, I have seen some progress in him!” Shepard assured, raising one finger toward Gabriel. “I trust that if all goes well tomorrow night, he may prove to me that he will one day be capable of filling my shoes.” There was a pause. “One day. Surely no time soon,” he added with a laugh.

“Your optimism is admirable.”

“Mm, do not condescend, Mr. Satterwhite. It is not so much admirable as it is necessary.”

And that was true. Gabriel had been aware for years that the idea of leaving the Lambrick legacy in the hands of Julian was quite reprehensible to Shepard—and with good reason. Julian was a wily, classless individual with a miserable attitude to match. Gabriel strategically avoided him during his visits, as his disdain toward the young Lambrick was most assuredly returned in spades. But it was all Shepard could do to face the situation with tremulous hope that he might lead by example and, at the very least, trick Julian into assimilating with the family’s proud, elegant image.

For Gabriel, it was nothing short of a sad charade to watch. 

Lambricks were very much people of the past. The threat of a new and thankless generation of wealth repulsed them. They hailed from a time of sparkling social graces, a time when their place in the California mythos rivaled that of royalty. Their oil fortune was secured by the early 1870s and further bolstered by an embarrassment of western property ownership, and no generation of Lambricks since had turned down the opportunity to live luxuriously. They were decadent, confident and fiercely independent people. Rarely did they have more than a single child, and even more rarely did they play a measurable role in the rearing of that child. They were well-dressed, well-read, and devastatingly charming to their public.

But it was an amateur fascination with human psychology that birthed this family’s brutal tradition over a century ago. And passed from father to son, both the tradition and the fascination would endure. Shepard’s eyes alight with a twisted fire when he discusses it. 

_“For generations, the Lambricks have wanted to help others,”_ he would say, _“but we argue that the needy and the worthy are not always one in the same. And so we put them to the test. It is about strategy. It is about decision making in its rawest form. It is through the game that we endeavor to find… the worthy.”_

His logic was as disturbing as it was utterly sincere, and his passion was hypnotic.

Needless to say, to tangle with a Lambrick was to flirt furiously with disaster. 

But for Gabriel Satterwhite, that ship had set sail long ago with no hope for return. 

“Well, what do we have lined up for today?” Gabriel asked as they situated themselves at the corner of a dining table far too large for the two of them. The picture windows framed the distant Los Angeles skyline. There was a small plate of parmesan and parsley arancini waiting on the table. Shepard gestured for a nearby staff member to pour them each a glass of bourbon.

“Cranberry and apple-stuffed Cornish hen—one for you, one for me—roasted fingerling potatoes and sautéed mushrooms.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Hen! Sweet Jesus. To what do I owe this honor? You’ve never been a bird man.”

“Gabriel, what sort of miserable host would I be if I never once considered your wishes?” 

“The one I’m accustomed to, that’s what sort!” Satterwhite laughed. “Are you feeling all right?”

Shepard grinned darkly. “Oh, never better.”

“Hmm. A decent selection of guests this year, I take it?” Gabriel asked and tipped the glass to his lips. 

“Yes, I would say so. I met a terrific one this morning: a young lady looking to help her ill brother. No parents, no ties… almost too good to be true. But I have yet to meet yours! I hear you have a gentleman coming to me from Las Vegas?”

Gabriel stiffened imperceptibly before taking another drink. He would be needing more than that before the night was out. “I have. A regular at White Horse LV. His name is Peter Fritz—we were two steps away from charging the guy rent, he’s been glued to the craps table for so long. High stakes gambling, _massive_ debts. Just massive. So massive that word made its way to me in Boston. He’s been a bit of a problem for us.”

Shepard carefully plucked an arancino from the plate and placed it in his mouth, his thumb lingering at his moustache. “Hmm. Gamblers. Gamblers are _fascinating_. Always a surprise. They either do quite well or remarkably badly. I had a gambler win two years ago, you know.”

“I do,” Gabriel said with a smile.

And then with quivering lashes and wide hazel eyes, Shepard nearly affected a look of innocence. In moments like these, Gabriel could see his manipulative young suitemate in the 1970s with frightening clarity. “And I presume… Gabe… you may want to stick around and observe your Peter’s success?”

Satterwhite took an arancino and chewed deliberately. “I have not had nearly enough bourbon yet to answer that question, Shep.”

The Lambricks customarily held the game on the first weekend in October. For more years than Gabriel could recall, Shepard had always extended to him a special invitation to attend and observe. It was a unique honor, being the only outsider to ever have been offered a seat at the table. And truth be told, the thought often crossed his mind that Shepard would be an electric ringmaster. Gabriel frequently envisioned his theatrics, his relish, his orations. The man so loved to hear himself orate. It was surely a sight to behold: Shepard Lambrick dressed in his finest, moving his pawns, shrouding the blood and the suffering in silken sophistication. 

Perhaps this was why Gabriel never once accepted Shepard’s invitation. He feared how sickly he may enjoy the spectacle.

Lambrick’s primary assistant, Bevans, arrived with the cranberry and apple-stuffed hens. “A seasonal choice for you, Mr. Satterwhite. Enjoy.”

It had almost become a game in itself, how very near that weekend in October Gabriel would plan his visits, despite having no intention of staying for the game. He smirked to himself. Shepard merely raised his eyebrows, gave a haughty hum and turned his attention to the meal. There were a few rogue silver streaks in his moustache these days. They caught Gabriel’s eye, and at once, his mind scrambled to calculate just how many invitations he had rejected. 

He blinked twice and looked to his dinner. The birds were roasted to a lovely shade of caramel and dressed with two generous sprigs of rosemary. Gabriel cut off a small piece and slipped it into his mouth, and it tasted uncannily like golden autumns in Boston. It was a magnificent temptation on Lambrick’s part, to say the least.

But even the exquisite hen could not distract Gabriel from pestering thoughts of the passage of time, thoughts which had plagued him an unusual amount as of late. Those thoughts only grew louder as he approached sixty. He wondered briefly if Shepard was taunted by the same cruel voices.

Shepard’s confident tenor cut through the silence. “I understand you were in Norfolk last week?”

Gabriel was shaken from his reverie. “I was! Yes, I was. We were there to scope out a potential resort spot. No casino, though. Virginia law.”

“Mm, pity.”

“It remains to be seen whether or not that expansion would be worth it,” Gabriel sighed and looked down to his ropey hands, where he feared his age was most obvious. The pestering thoughts returned and coaxed additional details to his lips. “You know, the most bizarre thing happened to me in Norfolk.”

“Oh?”

“The four of us, my colleagues and I, attended an old cabaret. A dinner theater called The Chesapeake. Lovely place, old Ashley Lynch’s place.”

Shepard tapped his fork on his plate as he recognized the name. “Ashley Lynch! The conductor, yes? There’s a man I haven’t thought of in an age.”

“That’s right. Anyway, his niece, Wynona, sat with us at our table. Perfectly pleasant person. Choreographs the performers. She spoke with us for hours, but I swear… this young lady would not take her eyes off me the entire night.”

Shepard seemed unfazed by this information. “You’re a very attractive man, Gabriel.”

That slowed Gabriel for a moment. It may have caused him to blush if the bourbon hadn’t already obliged. “That’s not the point, Shep. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was angling to cut some kind of deal with White Horse. But I suppose word had somehow traveled to Norfolk, Virginia of my reputation for being unattached, because you’ll never believe… this woman asked me to bed with her.”

Shepard stopped chewing for a fraction of a second. “And did you accept?”

Gabriel recoiled. “Hell no! You know me better than that.”

Shepard chuckled and looked back to the hen. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”

“I was merely struck by her age.” Gabriel paused and knitted his brow. “Or perhaps rather mine. I used to be approached by frivolous women all the time. You remember. It was wretched. I couldn’t swat them away quickly enough. But Shep, here was a woman not much older than… than _Julian_ making the first advances toward me I’d seen in some time. And that’s when I realized… Christ. It just doesn’t happen to me anymore. Isn’t that something?”

“Ah, that’s not so unusual. We are getting older, you and I. A man of our age will be presumed married until proven otherwise,” Shepard said with disdain. How correct he was. Gabriel was reminded of his clucking employees and how they so often obsessed over his personal affairs, how often he was harassed and doubted and interrogated about his solitude. How often his name was whispered in his network by blindly hopeful women and suspicious men. 

His disinterest in marriage had earned him a nickname at White Horse that still made his skin crawl to this day: ‘The Bachelor.’

Shepard took his knife to the hen’s breast with the precision of a surgeon. Without making eye contact, he continued lowly, “You never did marry, Gabriel.” 

Satterwhite suppressed a shudder and reached for his whiskey. “Nor did I want to. I have no interest in that kind of dishonesty.”

“Hmm,” Shepard replied with a slow nod as he chewed. “I cannot fault you that.”

Shepard glared distantly at the opposite end of the table. It was then that Gabriel knew he was giving Erna Solheim her obligatory moment on his mind at this significant time of year. 

Erna was a frigid and unpredictable woman, sharp as a tack with a sick sense of humor to match. She had been a Norwegian property tycoon, the international figurehead of the Solheim Gruppen real estate collective. Her marriage to Shepard Lambrick had been founded on a dysfunctional friendship and the promise of mutual benefits for their respective businesses—but not much beyond that. 

It was hard for Gabriel to believe it had already been seven years since she met her grim demise.

The moment passed, and Shepard changed the subject abruptly. “That ring on your finger. Is that the same one from all those years ago?”

Gabriel looked to his middle finger and smiled. “Sure is. Solid silver.”

“Let me see.” Shepard took the ring and examined the Cornell seal with bleary eyes. He adjusted its distance. The shoulders of the band were decorated in intricate filigree that had darkened with time and wear. “Ah, yes. It’s still in relatively fine shape! I never got one of these, you know. You always were the more… _sentimental_ of the two of us.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows challenged the remark. “Sentimentality doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. You were too stingy to purchase one!”

“I thought it a silly expense,” Shepard said with a grand shrug and handed the ring back. “But it’s a handsome item, nonetheless.”

The darker side of Gabriel’s humor stirring suddenly, he spat, “More handsome than a wedding ring, that’s for certain.” 

Shepard cackled.

“ _Much_ more handsome than that!”

The sun was setting as they picked the birds clean. As far as Gabriel could tell, Shepard was surprisingly enthusiastic about the dish, despite his proclivity toward red meat; he ate it all without hesitation. And in the warm haze of tipsiness, Gabriel could not deny that there was something cathartic about dining with Shepard—watching as he politely slipped his fork past his lips and hummed in approval, following his rhapsodic hand gestures as he effused, observing how his mouth would strike and caress each word. There was poetry in his self-importance. Gabriel felt his eyes grow heavier. 

He was loath to admit it, but their dinners at Artemesia possessed an addictive kind of domesticity. 

The sunlight had dimmed to a dark orange glow by the time they left the dining room, and the space took on a more hellish hue that only seemed to foretell its future use.


	2. Chapter 2

After dinner, they would often relocate upstairs to the master lounge. The house was full of cozy, elegantly proportioned spaces that nearly made one forget just how immense it was, and this dimly lamplit nook was no exception. With its sage green walls, rich mahogany woodwork and stunning stained glass skylights, it was easily as decadent as the meal.

Shepard settled in one corner of a deep gray loveseat by an open window. Several of the upstairs windows had been opened to the night air, stirring the house’s antique musk and blending it with the fresh scent of cypress. He was sipping a cup of chamomile tea, as he often did to settle his stomach after heavier fare. He had shed his suit jacket and further unbuttoned his shirt collar, and he savored the moment with his eyes closed. Gabriel had similarly undressed to his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and his bones stirred with quiet pleasure as he walked behind Shepard to place his hands on his shoulders. He began to rub gently.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Oh, very. That was divine. I always seem to overeat when you are visiting. You’re a miserable influence.”

Gabriel smiled. “It must be the Italian in me.”

Running his hands over the soft silk blend of Shepard’s shirt, he could feel the tired muscles of his shoulders shifting beneath. He pressed more firmly. It was always jarring to touch Shepard in this way after some time, a carnal reminder of the fact that the man was—despite all evidence to the contrary—merely human. 

These moments were as rare as they were dear to Gabriel. At the end of the day, Shepard Lambrick could not deny his weakness for living well. Indulgence was like a drug for him. The bourbon tinged his cheeks a feverish crimson, his momentum slowed to a crawl, and his breathing responded to every touch. Gabriel could play the man like an instrument in this state, and it was something he coveted. He pressed his thumbs against two identical knots of tension on Shepard’s upper back, and the latter moaned obscenely.

“You’re tight as can be, Shep.”

“I am perfectly fine.”

He continued to knead. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this time of year gives you stress.”

“Stress? Ha! Hardly,” Shepard scoffed. “Quite the opposite. I’m in my finest form. I am tight to begin with, you know that…” His voice trailed off as Gabriel’s spidery hands worked up his spine. One paused to brush lightly against his neck before slipping under his shirt collar, weaving through the coarse hair on his chest. As he rubbed in slow, firm circles, he could feel Shepard’s heartbeat accelerate. Shepard’s hand responded in kind and began to palm idly between his own legs. “Gabriel…”

Gabriel’s eyes were affixed to the steady rhythm of that hand. “Say my name like that any louder, and there will be no mystery as to what we’re doing in here.”

“Oh, that doesn’t strike me as much of a dilemma,” Shepard said, grinning in sick satisfaction. He punctuated this with an exaggerated arch of his back, before remembering his vanity and correcting his posture. He slid a modest arm back around his abdomen. “They all know. You know they know. Bevans certainly does, and he would be happy to dismiss any others who care to ask questions.”

The severe implications of the word _dismiss_ were not lost on Gabriel. He raised his eyebrows. “Hmm. Well, that being the case…” he began, reluctantly halting his ministrations to undo the buttons of his charcoal waistcoat, “perhaps I won’t have to lock the door this time.”

Gabriel then took the initiative, walked around the loveseat, and carefully sat himself square astride Shepard’s lap. He was grateful his limber physique and strong joints still allowed him to position himself in such a way: a point in his favor in the the ever ongoing battle with Time. This stroked his pride enough to keep those pestering thoughts at bay. 

“Ooh, eager, are we?” Shepard asked. “I seem to recall you holding off a bit longer in the past.”

“And I seem to recall you being rather uncompromising in your dinner selections in the past,” Gabriel said pointedly. “Cornish hen—that was one hell of a gesture! But there’s a first time for everything, as you say.”

“Come now. I thought I should show my appreciation for your travel,” Shepard purred, his countenance softened by drowsiness. “Is that so unusual?” He ran an appraising hand down Gabriel’s side to rest at his narrow waist. It pulled a quiet sigh from Satterwhite’s lips, which was almost inaudible beneath the steady chirp of crickets outside the window. 

“I have to say, something this selfless out of you almost strikes me as a _bribe_. Although I know better than to think that’s the only reason for it. I’m touched, Shep. Truly,” Gabriel playfully condescended. He slid a shirt button open, slightly exposing more of Shepard’s chest. His fingers followed the small dip in his sternum.

Shepard narrowed his eyes and shook his head. Gabriel half expected him to erupt into an impassioned rant about the generosity of his years of invitations. But with decades of experience behind him, Gabriel knew he had tested the waters wisely; Shepard Lambrick was not in a fighting mood. He said only: “Satterwhite, you patronize like a real professional.”

Gabriel drew their faces closer, his thumb resting against Shepard’s moustache. He was taken at once by how undeservedly kind time had been to that face, and he smiled. “I must say, that is high praise coming from you, my friend. Thank you.” 

Shepard then framed his face with his hands, held him fast and kissed his mouth. It transported him to dozens of places—the green-tiled shower a few rooms over, a plush settee near a fireplace at a Swiss resort, his own master bedroom at his home in Boston… his living quarters at Cornell. The scent of myrrh crept into his consciousness, a fine cologne Shepard had purchased in Morocco some fifteen years back when they had traveled there together. Nostalgia took hold of his old soul with unprecedented strength, and he felt a strange prickling at the corners of his eyes. 

He felt Shepard’s fingers as they wove insistently through his thick hair, pulling at the graying roots and drawing him near. And when Shepard’s tongue slipped into his mouth, he tasted mildly of the herbal tea. He was delicious in his persistence, his warmth, the way he touched Gabriel not like an old thing to be handled with care, but like a solid, able-bodied thing who invited strong fingers and nipping teeth. Shepard obliged and took his mouth to Gabriel’s neck, dragging his teeth along the pulse point beneath his jaw. He bit down firmly where his neck meets his shoulder, and Satterwhite hummed.

It was rather like tennis, Gabriel had always observed; he and Shepard had cultivated a delicate power dynamic, and it was with a well-practiced volley that the upper hand was passed between them. It was a game they had long mastered, but one that still left them panting for breath. That much had not changed at all since their earliest days.

With the ball in his court, Gabriel shrugged off his waistcoat before tending to the rest of Shepard’s shirt buttons. He could not resist further undressing him, further exposing his body, which had become more handsomely robust with age and his privileged lifestyle—and so he made quick work of removing his belt and unfastening his trousers, as well. He took his hands fearlessly to his bare skin, first reaching around to grip his back, then drawing forward to gently stroke along his full stomach. Shepard gave a start at this and made a small sound against his will.

Game, set, match. 

“Still your Achilles heel…” Gabriel said against his lips. “I know you like that.”

Shepard cleared his throat. “Searching for more praise, Mr. Satterwhite?” he asked, unable to withhold the tremor in his voice. He closed his eyes. “Well, you did always have good hands, Gabe. That much I will admit.”

“Hmm. These ‘good hands’ are beginning to show their age, I am afraid,” Gabriel confessed with a wry grin. He pulled back and held up his right hand delicately. He was pleased to see it appeared less worn in the lamplight. “They’re sore these days, more often than not.”

“Well, they still feel strong,” Shepard insisted quietly. He grasped Gabriel’s palm and massaged it experimentally between his thumb and forefinger. It was oddly comforting. “Surely you are not already concerned about that.”

 _Surely._ The dark corners of Gabriel’s mind stirred anxiously to life yet again with thoughts of mortality. Those demons always rose at the most inopportune of times. With the aid of liquid courage still coursing through him, he would face them—as he so often did—with humor. “Well, Shep, being The Lone Wolf at White Horse certainly has its downfalls. I suppose the arthritis that comes with the desk work is one of them,” he said with a cynical laugh. He could scarcely believe he had let that slip; ‘The Lone Wolf’ had been floating around the upper executive levels of White Horse for a few years, but as much as he had ignored his previous nickname, he ever more fiercely turned a blind eye on this one.

Something about it was so much worse. 

The damage was done. Shepard laughed incredulously. “The Lone Wolf?” He drew himself back to size up the character that title had produced. “Ooh, I like that. Very Spaghetti Western. But that wasn’t what they called you, was it? No. Weren’t they calling you… The Bachelor?” he teased. 

It was suddenly no longer an arthritic soreness that plagued Gabriel, but rather a twisting discomfort deep in his core. He pushed it away. “Well, there comes a time when a man on his own ceases to be The Bachelor and becomes nothing but an old loner. I suppose, if you ask those I work with,” he sighed theatrically, “that time has come for me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I find that hard to believe. You have men older than Methuselah working beneath you. You don’t mean to tell me even _they_ think you’re past your prime—”

“ _The Lone Wolf_ , Shep. How gray does that sound? Horribly. Terribly gray,” Satterwhite answered himself with a wince. He was well aware that his composure was being discolored by desperation. This was not lost on Shepard, as he had come to expect. They knew one another far too well.

“Now,” Shepard warned as he deliberately began to remove Gabriel’s shirt, button by button. “Stop this. I don’t invite you here to watch you pout about your age. Besides, you’re only two months older than me. And _I_ feel,” he drew in a breath while he chose the perfect word, “ _magnificent._ ” His smile was truly terrible. 

Gabriel found it almost impossible to believe Shepard had not had similar concerns about his age. He had seen Shepard lament the future of the Lambrick Foundation time and time again, whenever a melancholy mood would seize him. He had seen Shepard irrationally and obsessively fear for his legacy, and he knew well how untrusting he was of his son; he could practically recite all of Lambrick’s grievances by heart, at this juncture. 

And he had also seen Shepard Lambrick at his most listless: an uncharacteristically subdued voice at one end of a telephone seven years ago, passing the message that Julian had murdered his mother, Erna, in cold blood. 

Gabriel knew he was not so unaffected. 

“ _Do_ you feel magnificent?” he asked doubtfully. 

“Oh, certainly, I do.”

“You must tell me your secret, then,” Gabriel said practically, his fingertips returning to Shepard’s body and coming to rest on his chest. “What is it? Do those insipid parlor games of yours keep you young?”

He was not entirely sure why he said it. It tumbled past his lips with all the brash, judgmental confidence of a much younger Gabriel Satterwhite, the young man who refused to fall at Shepard Lambrick’s feet, the young man who felt such a fire when living with that self-important San Francisco aristocrat that he could only keep those flames at bay with the exhilaration of argument and sex. Shepard’s pulse quickened under his fingers and his eyes narrowed slowly. He was still as a lake. This was dangerous territory. 

His genial tone vanished. “ _Insipid_. Hmm. I don’t seem to recall you ever, even once, accepting my yearly invitation to come and observe.” 

Satterwhite swallowed. “You would be right.”

“Then I feel as though _insipid_ may be harsher a judgment than you are qualified to give, Mr. Satterwhite.”

Gabriel regarded the bristled Lambrick as one may an agitated house cat: with equal parts endearment and genuine caution. There was never legitimate danger between them, but nonetheless, he understood he had overstepped a boundary. “I can’t disagree, Shep. You know me, though. It’s not that I disapprove entirely; I understand your family’s tradition. It’s more that it’s… er… outside my style.”

“Your _style_ ,” Shepard parroted skeptically. “And yet it is not beyond your _style_ , as you say, to contribute a contestant? Gabriel. I am surprised at you. That sounds to me like nothing less than cowardice and… well-dressed hypocrisy.”

Gabriel drew a deep breath, his body wracked by a curious cocktail of arousal and defeat.

He was right. 

“Yes… I suppose it does, doesn’t it?” Gabriel admitted as he pulled his own shirt off completely. A dark brand of pleasure took hold of his heart. He could not deny the thrill he felt at coming so close to attending the game year after year, flirting with the notion, and pulling away at the last possible chance. He ran a hand through his hair, and he swore he could feel his graying temples, the hair a touch coarser and more wiry than in the past. His hand froze and his face fell. “Although… perhaps I should witness it just once. One of these years.” 

Shepard read him like the Sunday paper. “While you still have _time_ , is that it? Before you die? Jesus Christ. Enough with the dramatics, Gabe. Please.” 

Gabriel set his jaw and exhaled. It was with the shame of surrender draped about him like a sash that he leant forward and rested his forehead against Shepard’s. He slowly ran a hand down his torso, slid it into his open trousers and made brief contact with his cock. Shepard’s eyes bloomed with black, and he wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s unclothed body with something that almost resembled reassurance. They held each other there for a moment. 

“Please,” Shepard reiterated firmly.

In that dimly-lit master lounge with a chorus of crickets as witness, Gabriel Satterwhite conceded. And only if for a night, the demons were laid to rest.

“All right. But be honest with me here…” he began, his middle finger following the light trail of hair above Shepard’s navel. “Where would you and I be without our flair for the dramatic?”

***

With such seasonable early October weather in Southern California, the open window was a mercy.

Gabriel shivered as a light draft blew across his back. He eased himself up and down again on Shepard’s cock, coloring the house’s shadowy quietude with steady, panting breaths. Shepard was watching him with rapt attention, his eyes wide and his lower lip held loosely between his teeth. He thrust to meet Gabriel’s every motion, and his hands held the back of Satterwhite’s neck in a possessive grip. 

It was not unusual, when he and Shepard would have sex, that Gabriel’s mind would wander to all the anonymous blood on those hands. Hands which were so well-kept, hands which orchestrated the fates of others as easily as they touched him with uncommon respect. With his better judgment silenced by arousal, Gabriel was shamefully energized by the thought. It stimulated that same primal instinct that had driven him from home decades ago, that which told him he must stop at nothing until he had his enterprise. Somehow, along the way, he had won the intimacy of this pitiless man; somehow, through years of secret bloodshed and rejected invitations, this remained. 

Those hands touched him not as an object, but as an equal.

It was a deliciously reprehensible thought.

Gabriel arched his back as he eased down slowly, and Shepard’s eyes wandered to catch the image in a standing mirror across the room. Artemesia was full of mirrors, and Satterwhite was well aware of their locations. Shepard’s mouth fell open and his eyes darkened as he watched.

“Always the voyeur,” Gabriel said into Shepard’s ear.

“Yes,” Shepard admitted freely. He swallowed. His distant gaze was still fixed on the mirror when he pressed a slow kiss to Satterwhite’s clavicle. “You look very good, Gabriel.”

Compliments were rare enough between them that Satterwhite’s body shuddered at the words. 

Their sex had changed dramatically since the days at Cornell. They used to tumble frantically and gracelessly on Shepard’s bed, fueled by disagreement and base need. Bruises were common, and on occasion there was even blood. But with age, their disposition in the bedroom edged away from the pugilistic. Out of a greater respect for one another grew an odd but intimate mutual affection. Sex became less about combat and more about pleasure, particularly after fine meals, when shameless extravagance would leave Shepard gratified and sufficiently declawed. 

Gabriel touched a hand to Shepard’s jaw and guided his eyes back to his. The drowsy, utterly sated gaze he received confirmed what he already knew: this was, indeed, one of those evenings. 

Satterwhite grinned as he traced Shepard’s full lips with his thumb. The latter accepted the thumb with an open mouth. He held it still on his tongue with his teeth, then closed his lips around it. He hollowed his cheeks and hummed as it was slowly removed. 

Bracing himself on the back of the loveseat with one arm, Gabriel increased his pace. 

Shepard’s breathing followed suit, and it hitched in his throat a time or two as Gabriel tensed around him. In an effort to take control, Shepard then turned his attention to Gabriel’s neglected erection, which had been pressed closely against Shepard’s belly. He grasped it with his left hand and began to stroke slowly and judiciously along the shaft. 

“You’ve a pretty cock, Mr. Satterwhite,” he pronounced with intoxicating confidence. His words were as frank as they were richly enunciated, and Gabriel’s ears revered every syllable. “Perhaps… I can coax it to satisfaction.”

The room rang with Gabriel’s sharp cry as he came, his orgasm pulled from him by those beautiful, merciful, terrible fingers. Artemesia had witnessed much over the years, and as plentiful as the blood in its inventory were moments of utter exposure such as this, moments when Gabriel Satterwhite would let fall any pretense and give himself, his mind and his body to Shepard Lambrick.

Only minutes later would he see Shepard’s lidded eyes wander yet again to the standing mirror. That syrupy voice breathed Gabriel’s name with poignant finality as Lambrick ruthlessly sank his nails into his waist. And by the time Shepard’s eyes fluttered shut, his lips rounding out as he reached climax, Gabriel’s skin was impressed with half a dozen crimson marks. 

Shepard gave a magnificent sigh and let his head fall back. The streaks of gray on his temples were damp, and his thighs trembled almost imperceptibly. 

When Gabriel brought their mouths together, the night was eerily silent outside that open window, and the air was still.


	3. Chapter 3

Marina Laducci Satterwhite, Gabriel’s mother, always saw irony in nice weather. _“People die on sunny days,”_ she would say with macabre humor. Her smile was knowing, and her pretty white teeth belied the dirt behind her words. _“Isn’t that something? No matter the weather, there is death happening somewhere. What a world, eh?”_

The Laducci family’s long-standing connections to the mafia made Marina something of a sweetheart to the Boston mob when she moved to Massachusetts in her early twenties. As a result, she was privy to more than her fair share of unsavory situations over the years. She always said when someone was marked for death on a bright, blue-skied day, _“The sun is dishonest today.”_ Gabriel could recall her saying this when he was far too young to understand what it meant. But he still sensed the darkness in her observations from an early age, and he would wonder why she invited such attention to her secrets with these cryptic remarks, why it seemed as though her secrets were burning such troublesome holes in her psyche that she must reveal them to someone, to _anyone._

He wondered the very same thing about Shepard Lambrick when one evening at Cornell, his words mingling with smoke, the young man had let slip that he would soon be making a trip home for quite an unconventional game of Would You Rather. 

Shepard could have been killed for it. That was no exaggeration; exposing the Lambrick Foundation’s annual black eye was almost certainly punishable by death, even for someone in the family. But against all odds, Shepard had revealed certain confidential details to Gabriel that he would never again reveal to another outsider. Their prickly, unstable camaraderie at the time made Gabriel even more dangerous a recipient, but still Shepard Lambrick had completely—if not unwisely—trusted him with the information. 

As he stared blankly at a darkened pendant chandelier at some odd hour of the night in Artemesia, with Shepard’s warm body sleeping beside him, Gabriel Satterwhite would wonder yet again: 

Why him?

***

Saturday morning was bathed in dishonest sunlight.

Gabriel Satterwhite was wide awake by seven, and a black sedan awaited him outside. He combed his hair particularly as he eyed his reflection in Shepard’s bedroom. He felt suitably refreshed. He almost looked younger. These visits always left him with plenty of color in his cheeks—and elsewhere. An angry-looking blemish caught his eye, and he pulled aside his open shirt collar to reveal a bite mark at the base of his neck. It was dark enough to rival some of the bruises he and Shepard had left on each other decades ago. He pressed against it with careful fingers.

“Jesus, Shep. You’ve got a mouth on you.”

Shepard wandered in wearing only a pair of dark gray trousers. The hair on his torso was still flattened with water from the shower, and he was drying his head with a white towel. “Have I?” he murmured. He draped the towel over one shoulder and leaned in to have a closer look at the damage. “Haha!” he cackled. He touched the mark briefly with two fingers. “My, that’s a nasty one. My gift to you, Gabriel.” He gave Satterwhite a hearty pat on the shoulder, and there was even more pride in his step than usual as he strutted away to take a seat on the bed. “Enjoy it.”

Gabriel shook his head and continued to dress himself. “At least you picked a spot I can cover up. Otherwise, I might have had some nasty questions to dodge this evening.” 

This seemed to catch Shepard’s attention. He stiffened where he sat and dropped the towel unceremoniously to the floor. With brows raised and lips pursed, he eyed Gabriel doubtfully. “This evening, hm?”

Satterwhite would cruelly prolong the process, as he frequently did. “Well, yes. My reputation is already tainted enough by the strange things people like to say about my solitude. I might want to avoid waltzing in covered in bruises and bites like some horny teenager.” 

Fastening a brown belt around his hips, Gabriel glanced back at Shepard in the mirror. The half-dressed man was still glaring at him expectantly as he unfolded a lilac shirt on the bed. Gabriel was sure that ensemble was only to be a day outfit; it was far too modest for so momentous an evening, an evening Shepard relished nearly as much as he relished his appearance. “Can I help you?” Gabriel asked with a laugh.

Shepard stared at him for a beat. “Oh, no. No, I was merely wondering what marvelous excuse you have tucked away in your pocket this year,” he said as he broke eye contact. He slipped on the lilac shirt, buttoned it up and delicately tucked it into his trousers. “You are clearly due somewhere, as you always are.”

There was a fraction of Gabriel that almost felt remorse. He could not be certain what set this autumn visit apart from the others, what undermined his amusement with hints of regret, but Shepard’s scathing remarks had somewhat fractured his confidence. Gabriel pressed his lips together. “The Global Gaming Expo in Vegas. I will be making an appearance tonight.”

Shepard blew a puff of air past his lips. “Certainly, by this point, you have others who can make those appearances for you.”

Gabriel fastened the buttons of a handsome dark blue waistcoat and briefly admired his figure in the mirror. He avoided Shepard’s cold hazel eyes. “Yeah, I may. But no one as glib and charming as yours truly, I’m afraid. I have to make White Horse look as good as I can.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. Without a doubt.”

Shepard continued to dress in silence. After slipping on his shoes, he trotted back to his dressing room to retrieve his suit jacket. Gabriel was left alone in the quiet of that bright morning, hearing only the muffled creaks of Shepard’s footfalls on the old floorboards as he rapidly moved about. Lambrick was more excitable and tightly-wound than a sheep dog in an open pasture the morning before a game. Nothing thrilled the man like the promise of an audience. In spite of its grim context, the familiar behavior was almost endearing. 

It was more difficult for a sober-minded Gabriel to admit that some of Shepard’s most repellent qualities were precisely what drew him back to his door again and again. But the man’s twisted humor, his sickening self-importance, his brutal and unsympathetic disposition spoke to a darker side of Gabriel’s personality from the very beginning. Whatever it was that Shepard aroused in him spoke louder than his cynicism, and louder yet than the pestering threat of mortality. It spoke the loudest here at Artemesia, late in the evenings, when Shepard would take Gabriel and bestow upon him something the man scarcely ever showed another soul: respect.

Gabriel cursed quietly to his reflection. 

He sighed and looked to the white settee beside him, where only one item was left for him to don. It was that old silver ring. He picked it up and turned it between his fingers. 

_Still in fine shape after all these years._

A jay cried outside the window, and Gabriel glanced out at the hazy Los Angeles skyline from a house that, after so many visits, had strangely begun to feel like his own. The realization took hold of him like a vice, and nostalgia’s siren song did its fine work on him. 

His eyes refocused on the window pane. For a moment, he saw nothing at all.

Gabriel Satterwhite was a man of meticulous planning. Rarely did he venture beyond the script he penned for himself. Though he was a bold man, by no means was he a spontaneous one. But before he could reconsider, Lambrick’s name escaped his throat like a bird from a cage. 

“Shepard!”

“Yes?” he called from the dressing room.

“Come here.” 

Shepard emerged and finished folding a paisley pocket square into his breast pocket. “What? What is it?”

“One last thing before I split,” Gabriel said. “Here.” 

He presented the silver ring from Cornell to Shepard, who eyed it skeptically. 

“What’s this for?”

“My gift to you,” Gabriel said formally with a sarcastic glint in his cat’s eyes. “For your top-notch accommodations… and your kind invitation.”

“Hmm. So this is my consolation prize, I take it?” Shepard asked, a small smile twitching at one corner of his moustache. He took the ring and ran a thumb over its face.

“Something like that, yes.”

“So kind of you, Gabe,” he said as he delicately slipped it into his breast pocket. “Although I fail to see how it equates to… how many of my invitations have you turned down now? Twenty-five? Thirty?” 

“Ah, who’s counting?” Gabriel dismissed. He took a step forward, minimizing the distance between them. “Keep me in your mind, Shep. And _maybe_ I’ll bite the bullet and join you next year.”

“I’m not holding my breath,” Lambrick said with pitiful exasperation. “I hope you know it’s a miracle I still invite you back…” After a moment, he placed one hand on Gabriel’s neck in a firm caress. “See you for the holidays, my friend. But don’t expect another poultry dish! Now, go, before you have to cross paths with Julian. The last thing I want is your blood _or_ his on my good floors before my guests even arrive.”

***

Their visits had pleasant symmetry. Like a Cape Cod autumn breeze, Gabriel Satterwhite left as swiftly as he had arrived. But this year, he did not strut proudly from Artemesia after an amicable embrace and a half-hearted promise to write. He did not feign nonchalance, nor did he say another word about his engagement in Las Vegas.

This year, before venturing downstairs, Gabriel kissed Shepard slowly, with the fire of his younger self alive and well behind his lips. 

And then he was gone. 

Artemesia would look immaculate that evening. Not a pillow would be out of place, and not a trace of Gabriel’s visit would remain. Its wood-paneled halls were darkened, the floors were swept clean, and the entryway and sitting room were aglow with lamplight. Satterwhite’s name would not be on the lips of one Peter Fritz, nor would Shepard once mention the visit to Julian, who merely assumed that it had taken place. Lambrick would not even curse the man’s name as he dressed himself in his finest apparel and prepared to greet his unsuspecting guests, remembering that, yet again, Gabriel Satterwhite would not be among them.

But on Artemesia’s most unpredictable evening, one thing could be certain: 

This year, Shepard Lambrick would slip on a ring as silver as the Lone Wolf’s graying soul before taking the stage.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! Thanks for reading! Just a few notes, for the hell of it:
> 
> -If you look closely, Shepard is wearing a silver ring during the game in the movie, and he does not have it on during the scene in Dr. Barden’s office. So Gabriel’s Cornell ring was my take on that.
> 
> -Artemesia is the real name of the drop-dead gorgeous house where Would You Rather was filmed. You can check out a 3D walk-through of it here: https://matterport.com/3d-space/artemesia-craftsman-house/ In case you’re a total detail geek like me, this fic takes place in the dining room (which is actually set up in the virtual tour as the sitting room; the dining room and sitting room locations are switched in the movie) and the master bedroom and lounge (up the stairs, to the far left).
> 
> -As you may have guessed from the tags, my physical model for Gabriel is a middle-aged Bruce Abbott, AKA Dan Cain from Re-Animator. Because my love for Dan/Herbert clearly knows no bounds, haha.
> 
> -We never do find out how the Lambricks made their fortune in the movie, but I went with oil and old property based on a handful of similarities to the Rockefellers. Since the Lambricks are extremely ambiguous in the film, I also took liberties with deciding where they are based, why they started having these dinner parties, who Julian’s mother was/what happened to her, and so forth. And it was a HOOT.
> 
> -Thank you to @themoon-andbackagain for her tireless support and fantastic editing.
> 
> Cheers, and please feel free to leave a comment!


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